


A Creeping Life

by Deannie



Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Mag7daybook Summer Stockings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-31
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-10 23:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2044467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He figured the others all thought he was some silent loner, walking the world by himself. He wasn’t always. He’d had friends in his life. He’d had family for a while. He’d had lovers. He’d never had Chris Larabee before now, though, and somehow he’d come to be a mite more significant than most of the rest of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Creeping Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farad](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farad/gifts).



He always felt like he saw more in the dark than in the daylight. Something about the moonlight gave everything a sort of sharpness.

Tonight, he could have used a little less stark detail.

Chris Larabee’s face was ghost white with pain in the dying shine of the moon and the weak light of the campfire. It’d be full dark in an hour or two and then a few hours more of that ‘til dawn.

And even in that darkness, Vin knew he’d see the agony and the fear and the fatalistic glitter in Chris’s eyes—the look that Vin always saw, but never so clearly as in the middle of the night. Resignation. And though tonight, it could be resignation that he weren’t going to last the night, usually it was the resignation that he _had_ , and had to face another day.

“Nathan’ll be here soon, Chris,” Vin murmured, knowing that wasn't exactly true. It'd be a while. A long while. “Just take it easy.”

“Go to hell, Tanner,” Chris whispered. His breath was harsh but the words held no anger. “You’re— _God!_ —You’re not the one with a steel rod through your damn leg!”

“But I _am_ the one who’s gotta hear you whining about the damn thing,” Vin griped back, trying so damned hard to sound normal. Truth was, he was scared out of his wits. Hadn’t even been with these men for two months and already he’d come to care for ‘em more than he’d thought he could.

Made things like this a hell of a lot more painful that was certain. Wasn’t fair, really—all they were trying to do was help.

He and Chris and Ezra had been heading back to Four Corners, after running a prisoner up to Hellspoint to stand trial, when they’d come upon an old man trapped under his wagon. Was bleeding pretty bad, so they’d set about quick trying to lift the damn thing off him.

 

“All right, Mr. Tailor,” Ezra’d said in his soft, breezy voice. Usually sounded high and mighty, but damned if he wasn’t sounding downright comforting just then. “Just give Mr. Tanner and Mr. Larabee a moment, and we’ll have you out of here.” He had his hands solidly under the man’s armpits, ready to pull him out once they got the damn thing up high enough for it. Was a crumbling old thing to look at, but too sturdy to be broke apart.

“Okay,” Chris had called from the other side of the wagon. “On three. One, two, _three_!”

Damn the thing was heavy. Ezra yanked Tailor out without prompting, but they could barely hold the thing up even that long.

“Drop it!” Ezra’d yelled. “I have him!”

Vin had set his end down heavy and looked across to Chris as he did the same, and saw a sight he never wanted to see again.

As the wagon came down on one of the two remaining wheels, that wheel burst, and the whole wagon flipped sideways—right onto to Chris.

Yell he gave out would have scared the dead.

“Shit!” Vin ran to the other side, looking down and expecting to see Chris suddenly caught in the same predicament they’d found Tailor in. Except he wasn’t. The wagon only covered his lower legs and was the least of his problems. The problem was the two-inch-around axle pin that had impaled his left thigh, staking him to the ground.

Vin had crouched next to him, like he was now, and stared at it in fascination. “God damn.”

Chris didn’t hear him. Vin would’ve liked if that’d been because Chris was unconscious, but by the look in his eyes, Chris was just beyond anything but the agony in his leg.

Vin sucked in a painful breath of his own. “Chris? Come on now, Larabee,” he cajoled. “Talk to me.”

“Fuck.”

Vin’d laughed then, low and hopeless as he watched the wound bleed and bleed around both ends of the filthy pin.

“’Bout covers it, Cowboy,” he’d whispered.

 

“Could’ve left Ezra to babysit, you know?” Chris said shaking him from his memory, a grin on his face even though his leg had to still be killing him. At least the screaming pain of it seemed to have died down even before Ezra threw Tailor in front of him in the saddle and tore off for home. “I might not’ve shot him before you got back with Nathan.”

Vin snorted at that. “Hell, even _I_ ain’t got that much self-control. Wouldn’t’ve wanted to take the time to bury his body before we got you—“

He broke off as Chris caught a spasm in his leg and yelled out weakly. Weren’t no one else to hear it out here, and if it made him feel better, Vin’d let him bellow all he wanted.

He put a hand on Chris’s shoulder and squeezed, trying not to stare at the steel pin that nailed his friend to the dirt. Every time Chris started moving, more blood seeped out around the damn thing. Vin was out of clean bandages and was fast running out of extra clothes, too. “Easy now, don’t move none. Just ride it out.”

“Fuck,” Chris whispered as the spasm died down. Quiet and small—smaller every time he said it—the oath was the one constant in Chris’s world right now.

Well, Vin hoped _he_ was a constant, too. Not the way he wanted to be, but good enough. All he had.

“Want some more water?” he asked, more to move on from the moment than because he thought Chris needed it. All in all, he was doing better than he should be, though Vin knew that wouldn’t last. Too much blood lost, fever building too fast... Vin just wished there was something he could do for the pain.

“Could use more of Ezra’s bourbon,” Chris said with a disappointed groan. The flask had been full when Ezra had chucked it at them this morning, but it was empty now and they were fair in the middle of nowhere. Not a tuft of grass or a stand of scrub in sight for Vin to hope to find some herb or flower to ease the pain. Hell, they’d be hurting for water if Ezra didn’t make it back tomorrow.

“Maybe Josiah and Buck have the right idea,” Vin said, setting the edge of one the canteens to Chris’s lips and watching him drink. “Might should carry around the fixings for some of Nathan’s horse piss if I’m gonna keep riding with you.”

“Rather be drunk.” Chris shivered. “It’s getting cold already.”

Vin looked down at the puddle of blood that was too much liquid to just soak into the ground. Even in the deepening night, the world was keeping its heat and he was sweating. Chris was, too, though he didn’t know it.

Vin held in his worry and rose, taking his own horse blanket off of Peso and adding it to Pony’s, already covering Chris’s body. His legs and the rod stuck out the end because they couldn’t figure out how to take the damn thing out without him bleeding to death right quick. Vin brushed Chris’s forehead in an accidental fashion as he settled the blanket. Fever was even higher now.

Four Corners was a hard day’s ride away.

“Ezra’s home by now, you think?” Chris asked, breathless as he tried to cope with another spasm. He was starting to slur, though that could’ve been exhaustion.

“Maybe soon.”

No matter what Vin might’ve thought about Ezra in the beginning, the man was showing himself loyal more and more. He’d ride through the night, for sure—and Vin was thankful of Chaucer’s sure feet and the clear night and the moon that had risen half-pale with the dying of the sun. Maybe an hour more to home. Bit longer with Tailor slung in front of him. They wouldn’t be able to start out with a wagon before dawn—couldn’t risk the horses in full dark.

Chris shivered hard and the cry he let out was weaker. Vin considered praying.

“Why don’t you see if you can sleep, Cowboy?” he said quietly. “I’ll keep the fire hot for you.”

Chris grunted, but eventually dozed off, blood loss and fever and the night conspiring against him. Or keeping him from hurting for too much longer.

 

For the next couple hours, Vin watched the world fade away around them until all that was left was him and the shuddering form of his friend across the shiver of light provided by the fire. The wagon wasn’t good for much but it blocked the breeze and burned pretty good when you broke pieces off it.

Damn wagon.

Hell, damn Larabee while he was at it. Vin hadn’t meant to be here now. He’d meant to move on from Four Corners after a few weeks of saving up enough money to gather supplies.

He figured the others all thought he was some silent loner, walking the world by himself. He wasn’t always. He’d had friends in his life. He’d had family for a while. He’d had lovers.

He’d never had Chris Larabee before now, though, and somehow he’d come to be a mite more significant than most of the rest of that.

He remembered that first time he’d laid eyes on Chris. Clear, cool eyes, firm body, set face, intent on righting the wrong they, neither of them, could ignore. He was altogether beautiful and Vin hadn’t hesitated to follow him.

But that Chris would never stop mourning Sarah and Adam was obvious from the start. Vin’d mourned in the past—he guessed he still did, in a way. After all, he still wore the hat for Jerusha, still kept the medicine pouch Mammedaty gave him at his naming... Still held his ma in a place in his heart where no one else would ever set soul. He understood mourning better than most and he knew Chris had decided to stay there in the dark, rather than move on.

Mammedaty would tell Chris he was living a Creeping Life, never really living but not bothering to die. The Kiowan chief counseled all those who creeped to live or die, but not to do both.

Vin wasn’t sure Chris would understand it, broken as he was. Vin hadn’t either, at first.

Jerusha had been his sister in all but blood. Her death had closed him down some and the vengeance he’d sought had finished the job. He talked with his Kiowa brothers and hunted and danced and even laughed when the mood took him, but it rarely did. He looked like a young brave and felt like a hollow gourd; kept looking for the blow of an axe that’d collapse his empty frame.

Mammedaty had finally come to him in the night—a night like this—and given him the choice.

“If you would join Yellow Hair in death, we will help you, Lallo.” His eyes had grown hard and glittering in the near darkness. “But if you would live, you must live. Her spirit cannot touch you as you are and your family will not keep you here if you remain in the Creeping Life.”

Vin chuckled in the firelight. Poor Chris. No one had ever asked him to make that choice, he figured. Buck’d probably tried in his own way, but he didn’t have the heart to help anyone release a life not worth living. Hell, Buck didn’t seem to realize that there could _be_ a life that wasn’t worth the energy it took to draw breath in the morning.

“Guess I couldn’t either, Jer,” he murmured quietly. He was still here, wasn’t he, while his sister was dead? He’d made the choice to live proper, with her floating soft in the background, watching him. And after all these years, he was free, finding a real home again, enjoying life…

Enjoying Chris.

The thought sobered him quickly because he knew his Indian mother Soft Owl would call him on his lie, as any good mother would. He wanted more from Chris. He’d wanted more from other people in the past, too, but when he’d realized he wasn’t going to get it, he’d move on. Find something else or live without.

And yet here he was, pining for a man so far into the Creeping Life he’d only find his way out by going through a pine box six feet underground. Vin was living a creeping life of his own, it seemed—too afraid to ask for what he wanted but too in need to walk away from the hope of a miracle.

“Shit, Chris,” he murmured, watching firelight play over cold, hard, pain-bunched muscles as his friend slept. “Can’t even imagine what it’d be like with you, but I don’t think I can figure a way to live without.”

_Her spirit cannot touch you as you are._

Vin snorted, looking into the cloudless sky that held a million ancestors and more, knowing his am and Jer and every other person he had ever loved looked down on him and waited for his answer.

“She might not have been able to reach me, Mammedaty,” he whispered to the stars. “But I can reach him.”

Foolish notion, probably, that one creeping man could steer another toward a life worth living, but Vin couldn’t live as he was, and he figured, sooner or later, Chris wouldn’t be able to either.

They’d get through this night, get through this pain, and then….

Maybe they could teach each other how to live right.

* * * * * * * *  
The End


End file.
